The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Mass., celebrates the 10th anniversary of its successful Summer Program this year by announcing more than 100 weeklong and weekend workshops in writing and the visual arts, its most extensive program ever.
From June 26 through Aug. 28, FAWC will offer workshops taught by nationally and internationally recognized artists and writers, including Grace Paley, Michael Cunningham, Julia Glass, recent Pulitzer Prize winner Franz Wright, recent National Book Award winner Jean Valentine, Amy Arbus, Alex Webb and Constantine Manos.
Workshops include poetry, fiction, nonfiction, memoir, landscape and figure painting, watercolor, drawing, photography, etching and monotype. Levels of student experience range from novice to professional.
'Summer 2005' course listings are available on line at the Work Center Website FAWC.org . The just-published catalogue can be at ( 508 ) 487-9960.
This summer's faculty joins roster of such illustrious past Summer Workshop instructors as writers Dorothy Allison, Mark Doty, Alan Dugan, A.M. Homes, Carl Phillips, Gerald Stern, Yusef Komunyakaa, Charlie Smith, Elizabeth McCracken, Rick Moody, Ann Patchett, Allan Gurganus, Marie Howe, Susanna Kaysen, Amy Bloom, Michael Collier, Antonya Nelson, Forrest Gander, Paula Vogel, Sonia Sanchez and Toi Derricotte and visual artists Richard Baker, Michael Mazur, Lisa Yuskavage, Sharon Horvath, James Lechay, Sam Messer and Jack Pierson.
FAWC Executive Director Hunter O'Hanian believes that 'being situated in Provincetown, the Fine Arts Work Center can offer students access to the rich artistic heritage of the community as well as the opportunity to take creative, life-changing workshops. During the summer it provides a great chance for an artist or writer ( or aspiring artist or writer ) to share a vacation week or weekend with a partner or family: while the student takes a workshop, the family can explore the National Seashore, go on a whale watch and enjoy other attractions and charms of Provincetown and the Outer Cape.'
Thirty-seven years ago the Fine Arts Work Center was founded by a group of artists and writers, including Stanley Kunitz, Alan Dugan, Robert Motherwell and Hudson Walker, to provide a place in Provincetown where art and writing would be celebrated and nurtured. To date, the Work Center has assisted more than 700 writers and visual artists in the early stages of their careers, supplying an inspiring place to live and work, a modest stipend, a community of like-minded peers, and most importantly, seven months of uninterrupted time. A great number of Work Center alumni have gone on to win the most prestigious prizes in arts and letters; many have participated in the Summer Workshop program including, this year, Pulitzer Prize winners Michael Cunningham and Franz Wright.
FAWC Education Coordinator Dorothy Antczak believes that 'The Summer Workshop Program is offered in the tradition of the founders' vision to extend to a wider community the astounding opportunity to commit to creativity. Our faculty, culled from the finest and most accomplished writers and artists working today, are dedicated to the pursuit of excellence, and work to inspire and encourage artistic growth.'
The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Inc. is a Massachusetts charitable corporation, exempt from taxation under section 501 ( c ) 3 of the Internal Revenue Code. In addition to a modest endowment and revenue- producing, mission-related programs, its $850,000 annual budget is supported by governmental agencies such as the National Endowment for the Arts, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Ohio State Arts Council, Barnstable County Economic Development Commission and the Town of Provincetown. In addition, numerous private foundations and individuals support the Work Center. To learn more about FAWC, visit FAWC.org .
Applications for the Winter Fellowship Program can be downloaded from the FAWC Web site.